Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Institution
Articles 1 - 9 of 9
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Wildlife Emotions: Animal Rights As Examined Through A Cognitivist Lens, Kristy Schultz
Wildlife Emotions: Animal Rights As Examined Through A Cognitivist Lens, Kristy Schultz
The Hilltop Review
The aim of this article is to revisit and redefine the scope of a Kantian rights-based theory to include non-human animals. Generally, rights-based theories are predicated on a Kantian deontology that excludes all but rational subjects from possessing of basic rights. Historically, non-human animals—once thought to act on impulse and desire alone—have been excluded from rights-based considerations. However, more recent literature from emotions theorist Martha Nussbaum suggests an alternative picture for non-human animals. Cognitivist theories like Nussbaum’s, alongside intensive scientific research, support the notion that non-human animals show signs of intentionality and possess the capacity to emote. If Nussbaum’s theory …
Sentience Is The Foundation Of Animal Rights, Michael L. Woodruff
Sentience Is The Foundation Of Animal Rights, Michael L. Woodruff
Animal Sentience
Chapman & Huffman argue that the cognitive differences between humans and nonhuman animals do not make humans superior to animals. I suggest that humans have domain-general cognitive abilities that make them superior in causing uniquely complex changes in the world not caused by any other species. The ability to conceive of and articulate a claim of rights is an example. However, possession of superior cognitive ability does not entitle humans to superior moral status. It is sentience, not cognitive complexity, that is the basis for the assignment of rights and the protections under the law that accompany them.
Interspecies Political Agency In The Total Liberation Movement, Michael P. Allen, Erica Von Essen
Interspecies Political Agency In The Total Liberation Movement, Michael P. Allen, Erica Von Essen
Between the Species
In this paper, we examine the possibility of interspecies political agency at the level of social movements. We ask to what extent animals and humans can be co-participants in one another’s liberation from oppression. To do so, we assess arguments for and against including animals in the ‘total liberation package’, taken as the liberation from oppressive societal structures. These are not pragmatic-political arguments, but conceptual-philosophical arguments that have been put before animal liberationists attempting to ‘piggy-back’ on human liberation movements. In discrediting these philosophical arguments, we argue that animals have capacities for self-liberation that humans can facilitate and that animals, …
Demystifying Animal Rights, Mylan Engel Jr.
Demystifying Animal Rights, Mylan Engel Jr.
Between the Species
According to the mysteriousness objection, moral rights are wholly mysterious, metaphysically suspect entities. Given their unexplained character and dubious metaphysical status, the objection goes, we should be ontologically parsimonious and deny that such entities exist. I defend Tom Regan's rights view from the mysteriousness objection. In particular, I argue that what makes moral rights seem metaphysically mysterious is the mistaken tendency to reify such rights. Once we understand what moral rights are and what they are not, we will see that rights talk is neither mysterious nor nonsensical. I then consider a second aspect of Regan’s rights view that …
Chasing Secretariat's Consent: The Impossibility Of Permissible Animal Sports, James Rocha
Chasing Secretariat's Consent: The Impossibility Of Permissible Animal Sports, James Rocha
Between the Species
Tom Regan argued that animal sports cannot be morally permissible because they are cruel and the animals do not voluntarily participate. While Regan is correct about actual animal sports, we should ask whether substantially revised animal sports could be permissible. We can imagine significant changes to certain animal sports, such as horse racing, that would avoid cruelty and even allow the animals to make their own choices. Where alternative options are freely available, we can consider the horses to have preference autonomy in that they make their own decisions, and we could thereby claim that we have their hypothetical consent. …
Colb And Dorf On Abortion And Animal Rights, Mylan Engel Jr.
Colb And Dorf On Abortion And Animal Rights, Mylan Engel Jr.
Between the Species
In their recent book, Sherry Colb and Michael Dorf defend the following ethical theses: (1) sentience is sufficient for possessing the right not to be harmed and the right not to be killed; (2) killing sentient animals for food is almost always seriously wrong; (3) aborting pre-sentient fetuses raises no moral concerns at all; and (4) aborting sentient fetuses is wrong absent a reason weighty enough to justify killing the fetus. They also discuss strategies and tactics for activists: They oppose the use of graphic images by activists on tactical grounds, and they categorically oppose the use of violence by …
Fish And Pain: The Politics Of Doubt, Dinesh Joseph Wadiwel
Fish And Pain: The Politics Of Doubt, Dinesh Joseph Wadiwel
Animal Sentience
The commentaries on Key’s (2016) target article make it clear that there is a great deal of doubt about Key’s thesis that fish do not feel pain. The political question therefore is about how we should respond to doubt. If the thesis of Key and others (that fish do not feel pain) is wrong, then the negative impact for fish in terms of suffering caused by human utilisation would be extreme. In the face of this doubt, the very least we can do is to adopt basic welfare precautions to mitigate the potential impact if fish do suffer, with attention …
Review: Animal Oppression & Human Violence, Corey L. Wrenn
Review: Animal Oppression & Human Violence, Corey L. Wrenn
Between the Species
No abstract provided.
The Metaphysics Of Anthropocentrism: A Review Of Paul Ehrenfeld's "The Arrogance Of Humanism" And May Midgley's "Beast And Man", Bernard E. Rollin
The Metaphysics Of Anthropocentrism: A Review Of Paul Ehrenfeld's "The Arrogance Of Humanism" And May Midgley's "Beast And Man", Bernard E. Rollin
International Journal for the Study of Animal Problems
Philosopher Bernard Rollin reviews two books that discuss the place of humans and animals in the moral universe.